The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency will increase next year's budget by 7.4% from this year to switch national immunization vaccines to next-generation products and expand investment in responding to emerging infectious diseases and vaccine and treatment research and development.
The agency said on the 1st that it drafted a 2027 budget of 1.4347 trillion won, up 98.8 billion won (7.4%) from this year's 1.3359 trillion won.
The budget focuses on strengthening national immunizations, advancing the response system for emerging infectious diseases, managing chronic and rare diseases, and vaccine, treatment, and artificial intelligence (AI)-based research and development (R&D).
In particular, to strengthen coverage of national immunizations, it will expand influenza shots for adolescents and switch the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which prevents cervical cancer and other diseases, from the existing quadrivalent to a 9-valent vaccine. For pneumococcal vaccinations for people 65 and older, it will introduce the protein conjugate vaccine (PCV) instead of the existing polysaccharide vaccine.
Eligible adolescents for influenza vaccination will be expanded from 14 and under to 15 and under. The HPV vaccine eligibility for male adolescents will also be increased from age 12 to 13. The 9-valent HPV vaccine expands the preventable HPV types from four to nine compared with the existing vaccine, broadening the scope of related cancer prevention.
Accordingly, the national immunization budget for those 12 and under will increase from 206.7 billion won this year to 252.2 billion won next year, and the influenza vaccination budget for those 65 and older will rise from 122.8 billion won to 135.4 billion won. The HPV vaccination budget will increase from 30.2 billion won to 40.9 billion won, and the adolescent influenza vaccination budget will rise from 8.2 billion won to 12.5 billion won.
The pneumococcal vaccination budget for those 65 and older will surge from 13.6 billion won this year to 41.8 billion won next year.
It will also strengthen healthcare-associated infection control. The carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) infection reduction program will expand from three provinces and cities to six, and six specialized hospitals for multidrug-resistant bacteria will be newly designated and operated. The national antibiotic resistance management budget will also increase from 2 billion won to 3.7 billion won.
It will also boost capabilities to respond to emerging infectious diseases. The number of institutions under surveillance for acute respiratory infection pathogens will expand from 100 to 130, and nursing hospitals will be included. It will newly invest 2.8 billion won in follow-up research to maintain and renew the marketing authorization for a domestically produced anthrax vaccine.
To enhance testing capacity at the regional level during infectious disease outbreaks, excellent pathogen-confirming institutions will be expanded from nine in the capital area to 15 including regional sites. A new 300 million won budget has been allocated to establish a management system for private-sector infectious disease diagnostic testing.
The Honam infectious disease specialty hospital, Korea's first specialized infectious disease hospital, will receive 18.4 billion won with the goal of opening in the first half of 2027. National infectious disease beds will be expanded from 706 to 1,208, and aging facilities will also be upgraded.
The stockpiling system for a potential pandemic will also be strengthened. A new 5 billion won budget has been set for purchasing and managing personal protective equipment to protect responders such as medical staff, and 25.5 billion won will be newly allocated to stockpile antivirals for use against novel influenza and other threats.
Investment in vaccine and treatment research and development will also be expanded. The budget to support development of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines for pandemic preparedness will increase from 26.4 billion won this year to 40.5 billion won next year, and 8 billion won will be newly invested in the "Korean pandemic preparedness engine (K-AI PPX)" project, which uses AI to support everything from pathogen analysis to antigen design and entry into clinical trials. It will also newly support 1.5 billion won to develop a domestic mRNA antibody treatment for future infectious diseases.
It will also expand health care research using AI. It will establish an information strategy plan (ISP) to build the "Disease Data ON" platform to integrate and utilize key data from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, and newly invest 4.6 billion won to build a Korean large-scale AI training dataset.
It will also increase the budget for managing chronic and rare diseases. Hypertension and diabetes registration and education centers will be reorganized into integrated chronic disease management centers, and their operating areas will expand from 19 to 29 cities, counties and districts. To improve access to care for people with rare diseases, year-round support cases will be expanded from 1,150 to 2,713, and regional specialized institutions for rare diseases will increase from 19 to 21.
In the process of selecting beneficiaries for rare disease medical expense support, income and asset criteria for households of financial supporters will be phased out starting in 2027.
In addition, it will newly establish a national standard frailty assessment system to prevent frailty among older adults, and it will advance emergency room surveillance and heat-related illness prediction models to monitor health damage from abnormal climates such as heat waves and cold waves. To respond to the occurrence of infectious disease vectors due to climate change, AI-based real-time surveillance targets will be expanded from seven to more than 10.
Im Seung-gwan, commissioner of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said, "We focused the budget on next-generation vaccine transitions, responding to emerging infectious diseases, and managing rare and chronic diseases," adding, "We will continue to strengthen our response capabilities to protect people's lives and safety from the next pandemic and everyday health threats."